Vegan Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies (also Gluten-Free!)

I’ve been wanting to find some vegan cookie staples to have in my recipe book so we can start some weekend baking rituals with my toddler Lola. I keep reading how good it is to get them started helping in the kitchen at young age and I wanted to find some seasonally appropriate treats to make with her “helping” us along. I definitely crave the pumpkin/chocolate combination around this time of year and I thought if I could also make a gluten-free cookie too, then that would be a double bonus as well, since I’ve been trying to cut down on that lately. It took a few different recipes with a few different tweaks, but I finally found the right combination!

*you can also use 1 3/4 cups of this gluten-free flour blend that already has the xanthan gum mixed in if you like and skip the additional xanthan gum.

First, preheat the oven to 350° and line a baking tray with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Add the gluten-free flour, xanthan gum, flaxseed meal, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Whisk to combine until all lumps are removed and set aside.

In a separate bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, melted vegan butter, vanilla extract, maple syrup, coconut sugar, and nut butter with a hand held mixer. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a spoon until just combined.

Sprinkle in and gently fold in the chocolate chips. Give your dough about 5 minutes to thicken up a little as the flaxseed thickens a bit over time.

Use a tablespoon or small ice cream scoop (I like to use a scoop) to scoop a ball of dough about 2 tablespoons in size onto your baking sheet. Place your dough balls about 2″ apart. You can grease the back of a spatula (I just used some coconut oil) to flatten down the cookies a bit before baking as well so they don’t puff up into a mini mound. Bake for 13-15 minutes or until they are set and beginning to brown a bit and cool on a baking rack.

I like that these cookies are a little bit more fluffy and cakey and they almost taste like a cross between a muffin top and a cookie—yum!! So far everyone I’ve given these cookies to have loved them (they have the official Emma seal of approval!) and they are kind of the perfect way to end the day for me either with a mug of hot tea or with a cold glass of macadamia milk (my favorite non-dairy milk at the moment). Whether you are trying to avoid certain ingredients or you have some friends that are, I think this cookie recipe will please even the pickiest of eaters! xo. Laura

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a spoon until just combined.

Sprinkle in and gently fold in the chocolate chips. Give your dough about 5 minutes to thicken up a little as the flaxseed thickens a bit over time.

Use a tablespoon or small ice cream scoop (I like to use a scoop) to scoop a ball of dough about 2 tablespoons in size onto your baking sheet. Place your dough balls about 2″ apart. You can grease the back of a spatula (I just used some coconut oil) to flatten down the cookies a bit before baking as well so they don’t puff up into a mini mound. Bake for 13-15 minutes or until they are set and beginning to brown a bit and cool on a baking rack.

You guys should talk about how to make your own pumpkin purée from pie pumpkins! My in-laws taught me and now I will never go back, to me it tastes so much better. We do one big batch every year and store pre-portioned purée in the chest freezer. Now I get sad when I see people “wasting” pie pumpkins just for decoration 😉…also as a little bonus we gave some to our daughter as one of her first foods and she loved it.

Haha, sure!
Preheat your oven to 375 F (or the C equivalent I guess?). Basically you start by taking a bunch of pie pumpkins, cut them open (halves or quarters depending on size) and take all the seeds and nasty guts out. This part takes awhile and I recommend using something with an edge like a grapefruit spoon to scrape away. Keep the seeds if you want! Once all the seeds and the stringy bits are out put your pumpkin sections in a big and deep roasting-style pan, fill halfway with water (1-2in), and cover the entire dish with aluminum foil. Roast skin side down in the oven for at least an hour or until soft. Let cool at least long enough so that your fingers don’t get burned! Pumpkin should be very soft and the skin easy to peel away.

Please can you tell us how to do this? I live in the UK and you cant buy pumpkin puree or pie filling or whatever! (Nor have I seen flaxseed meal, coconut sugar or almond butter) are these things only available online or specialist shops ?

Sorry Marie, these are all things that I just buy at the local regular grocery store here. You can look for these items online to see if they are available near you or you can try whatever substitutions you can find locally for each item (like regular sugar or any nut butter will do).

It acts as a binding agent for the flour but if you can’t find it I would give it a try without it and it and see how it effects the outcome—it may just make it better but it may not be totally necessary if you can’t get your hands on it 🙂